This invention relates in general to chewing gum compositions, and in particular to an improvement that includes adding to a chewing gum porous polymeric water-insoluble polymeric beads that have microporous passages impregnated with one or more plasticizers.
Chewing gum generally contains a neutral and essentially tasteless masticatory gum base and one or more non-masticatory active ingredients mixed into the base. Active ingredients are those such as sweeteners, flavoring agents, flavor enhancers and potentiators and food-grade acids that determine flavor and taste characteristics of the gum. Other active ingredients include medicinal or pharmaceutical agents, or breath-freshening ingredients that treat or reduce bad breath. In addition, the chewing gum may and usually does contain water-soluble and usually sweet non-masticatory bulking agents, coloring agents, and plasticizing agents, the latter improving the texture of the gum.
Plasticizer agents are important to the chewing texture of the gum since they make the base more pliable in the mouth. After extended chewing, the plasticizer tends to loose its effectiveness since much of the water-soluble fractions of the gum have been extracted early in the chew, leaving a noticeably less pliable cud in the mouth. While a considerable amount of the plasticizer originally in the gum may still be left in the gum later in the chew, it tends to lose its effectiveness because the cud feels more dense or tight after the loss of much of the water-soluble fractions.
Although the addition of more plasticizer to the initial gum composition may seem to be a solution to this problem, it can create another. Additional plasticizer can render the initial gum too pliable, almost syrupy to the consumer. Until now, tightness late in the chew has been tolerated.